Monday, April 18
Generation to generation
Scripture: Judges 1-2, 1 Corinthians 5
Judges 2:7 The people worshiped the Lord throughout Joshua’s lifetime and during the lifetimes of the elders who outlived Joshua. They had seen all the Lord’s great works he had done for Israel.
Judges 2:10 That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works he had done for Israel.
Observation
The book of Judges tells the story of the time between Joshua’s conquest of the land and the kings of Israel (some 400 years later). The tribes of Israel failed to fully conquer the land and lived among its idolatrous neighbors and adopted their idols. What followed was a cycle of idolatry—oppression—deliverance. When the nation was oppressed, they cried out to God who raised up a “judge”, a leader who would deliver Israel militarily, and sometimes spiritually. Then the cycle would start over.
The cycle starts here in Judges 2 with the death of Joshua and the generation of those who had seen God’s great works in the Exodus, the desert and the conquest of the land. When that generation died, the next generation “did not know the Lord or the works he had done for Israel.”
Joshua and the elders had failed in their most important task: to pass the torch of faith to the next generation.
Application
Each generation must have its own experience of God, and then pass those stories on to the next generation. Those stories should become part of us, part of our culture, who we are.
But it is equally important that the next generation have its own experience of God, its own stories to add to the faith of the community, making it even richer and deeper.
So my role now as an “elder,” a father in the faith, is to tell our stories and to encourage the next generation to have their own and celebrate them. If we do that well, each generation gets stronger than the one before, knows the Lord better than the one before. That’s what we want!
Prayer: Lord, help my generation pass the torch of faith, tell our stories well, and celebrate the faith of the next generation. Help the next generation learn from us, have their own stories of God’s great work, and pass it on to their children…